Molly's Might
by PenguinofProse
Summary: Set at Christmas of sixth year. How will a Weasley jumper fix things between Ron and Hermione? Written for the December practice round of the IWSC.


Story Title: Molly's Might

Prompts:

1\. [Action] reading beside a fire

2\. [Setting] any Hogwarts house common room

Theme: Molly's knitted jumpers

Wordcount: 2126

**Welcome to my piece for the December practice round of the IWSC! This is set at the Christmas of sixth year...**

Hermione is not expecting much this Christmas. Sure, she's expecting gifts - a sizeable quantity of useless tat from her well-intentioned and distinctly middle class parents, more trinkets than she knows what to do with from aunts and uncles who don't know who she really is – but she's not expecting much in the way of _happiness_. She knows it's at least a little idiotic, to be this down in the dumps just because Ronald Weasley has found someone to snog, but she can't seem to help it. For once in her life, logic and sense appear to have flown clean out of the window with all of the speed of a Firebolt on steroids.

She misses those qualities, those aspects that are so integral to her personality. She misses them almost as much as she misses Ron himself. And it's silly, of course, because they've fallen out before – but they've never previously fallen out quite like _this_ before. The combination of intended date to Slughorn's party and snogging of someone who is, in so many ways, her polar opposite, seems to make for quite a substantial kind of a falling out.

She's not sure why she even cares. She shouldn't care, she tells herself firmly. It's just that – well – in a lifetime of feeling extremely insecure about a wide range of issues, he made her feel _secure_.

But whatever. She doesn't care. And she's not expecting much this Christmas, so she can't be disappointed.

…...

Sure enough, she wakes up on that blessed morning to a stocking stuffed with unnecessary thingamabobs and surplus whatsits. There are ugly items of jewellery from cousins whose faces she cannot visualise, a set of mechanical pencils from a great uncle who has no idea what she does all day. There are sweets from Harry, of course, and there are _not_ sweets from her parents.

And there is a jumper from Mrs Weasley.

This must be a mistake, she thinks at once, taking in the softness and the maroonness and the – the _Weasleyness_ of this unexpected item. Someone must not have told her what happened. But then she remembers watching Ginny write a letter, about that very snogging scenario, and she recalls Harry passing on that _the Weasleys send their love_. And then she employs her considerable intellect to this puzzle, and engages in a spot of logical reasoning.

And then she works it out.

This is no mistake. This is a message, and she gets it, loud and clear. Privately she thinks that it would have been a lot less effort for Mrs Weasley just to send her a Christmas card inscribed with the words _please don't give up on him_, but as she runs her fingers over this labour of love that must have taken hours, she cannot help but feel rather grateful for this vote of confidence.

She will not give up on him. She swears it. And this jumper is only the beginning.

…...

Of course, because she is Hermione Granger, she keeps her word. But she is working on a spot of personal growth, so she does so not in a loud manner, nor in an obnoxious one. No, she likes to think that the stand she makes is a rather _dignified _one, perhaps that it even involves subtlety and a bit of intelligence. It is a stand like no stand that has been made before.

It is really, she acknowledges, more of a _sit_.

She simply wears the jumper. She wears it to quidditch matches, and tells people it's because the Gryffindor colours of gold and maroon are so obviously appropriate for the occasion. She wears it on Saturdays as she goes into Hogsmeade – she may not be going with Ron, of course, but he sees her. She is certain of it. And most of all, she wears it in the common room of an evening, as she sits to do her homework or simply reads by the fire.

It is, she thinks, perhaps the most passive-aggressive protest anyone has ever made in the wake of a broken heart. She no longer avoids the smooching couple, but rather ensures that she is _everywhere_ they might see her, Weasley jumper on proud display, shouting from the rooftops – or at least from the fireside – that she is an accepted and endorsed member of the Weasley clan, and that she is here to stay, whether Ron and Lavender like it or not.

And he notices. She knows he does, can read it in the narrowing of his eyes, can hear it in the whispers of his conversations that break off when she enters the room. Can smell it, even, in the scent of victory she is beginning to catch on the breeze as January lengthens and his fuse grows ever shorter.

Ron Weasley has ever been a hot-tempered wizard. And that is exactly what she is counting on.

…...

She is in the common room, of course, when he finally breaks. He is sitting next to the fire, eating Lavender's face, and she calmly takes her book and adopts the armchair next to them, straightening her precious jumper a little as she does so. It's weird behaviour, of course it is, to plonk herself right there while the two of them are making out, but she pastes a carefully nonchalant expression on her face and gets on with her ostentatiously persistent jumper-wearing.

There is a sound which, she imagines, is not unlike the sound the giant squid would make while eating a pepper imp, and Ronald and Lavender disengage at the mouth.

"Won-won? What is it?" Lavender asks with some concern.

"Nothing," he says, red ears clearly betraying his lie, "you go to bed, Lavender. I'll catch you tomorrow. There's just – there's something I need to ask Hermione about."

Yes, she muses with some satisfaction. Yes there _definitely _is. Lavender does not look altogether happy to be thus dismissed, but she goes on her way. There are, Hermione notes, very few people left in the common room, but those that remain are making a great display of _not_ listening to the confrontation which is evidently about to occur.

She takes a deep breath, turns a page of her book. Continues her peaceful protest. He's staring at her, she can feel it, but she won't crack now. This sit-in is about to come to fruition, as long as she holds her nerve.

She sits. He sits. Seconds pass. And just as she's beginning to wonder if maybe it _won't_ work, starting to think that perhaps he's not so rash as she -

"Why the bloody hell are you wearing that jumper?" His anger bursts out of him, and in this moment he is not unlike a blast-ended skrewt, she muses.

"It's a little chilly." She gives a careful shrug. "That's why I'm sitting next to the fire, too. Jumper, fire – it's a perfectly logical combination for January."

"That is not what I meant," he grinds out, sounding, she thinks, somewhat in pain. For a moment she wonders if she might end up regretting causing him all this distress. Vengeance doesn't sound like the sort of thing she's supposed to be into, if she's sweet on him and all that.

"Oh?" She attempts to sound politely disinterested.

"I meant why do you keep wearing that _particular_ jumper? It's one of my mum's, isn't it? Admit it."

"I'm perfectly happy to admit to that. It was a Christmas present," she says airily.

"What – but – why would she give _you_ a _Weasley_ jumper for Christmas? You're not a Weasley." He sounds furious, and she begins to feel that victory is in touching distance.

Now she has only to hold her nerve, as she gets to the bit that rather scares her.

"I believe that, at the time she started making this jumper, she thought I might be dating a Weasley."

"She did?" He sounds absolutely flabbergasted. "But – I – who? Not – not Fred, surely?"

"I believe she thought I might be dating you," she says, hoping her careful shrug disguises the fact that her heart is going a mile a minute, "I seem to remember that Ginny had just sent her a letter in which one of the items of news was that we were planning to go to Slughorn's Christmas party together."

"She – she did?"

"It seems that way."

There is a beat of silence, in which she makes a great point of continuing to read her book while he attempts to digest this development. She thinks it has gone to plan, so far, but with Ron – well, she's never had things go to plan with him before now.

"And – what did you think?" He asks quietly and, almost, she thinks, humbly.

"About what, exactly? About the jumper? It's a very nice one, actually. The maroon is a colour I'm rather fond of."

"Not about the jumper." He scowls, clearly frustrated. "About – about the party. Did _you_ think we might be dating?"

"I can't see that it matters, now." She forces the words out, ignores the fact that the letters are beginning to swim a little on the page before her. "Now that you're happy with Lavender."

He's no longer on the chair _next to_ her. No, all of a sudden, he appears on the armrest of her chair, and it's the closest he's been to her in weeks and she can smell the unique scent of him and it's all so much she can barely breathe.

"It matters to me," he tells her, something of a wobble in his voice.

She dares to look up at him, to meet his eyes for the first time since that stupid party.

"I don't know anymore," she answers honestly.

"Do you think that – that maybe you could try to remember whether you _wanted_ to think we might be dating? Because if you did – well, if you did, I think I might have screwed up." She laughs at that, in spite of the dampness in her eyes. She just can't help it.

"I think that might be a bit of an understatement," she suggests gently.

"You might be right," he acknowledges. "You usually are."

"Do you think maybe we could stop wondering what _might_ have happened, now, and deal with what _did_ happen?" She asks tentatively.

"OK." He sucks in a breath, sits tense on the arm of the chair. "You asked me to Slughorn's party. And I was really excited. And – and I hoped it _was_ a date. Your turn."

"You said yes. And I hoped it was a date."

"And then I screwed up," he concludes sadly.

"Yes," she agrees, "and then I received a jumper, and started wearing it a lot, and then you got annoyed. And so here we find ourselves."

He's smiling at her, that Ron Weasley smile she has missed so much, the one that reaches all the way to his eyes and her heart.

"I'm sorry," he mutters, and she's sure she must have misheard him. He doesn't go around apologising to her like this. "I know it's a bit different from any of the other times I've screwed up, and I don't really know how to put it right but – but I'm going to have a go."

"You are?" She needs a bit more information, here, needs to know whether she ought to have hope.

"Yes," he says firmly. "Tomorrow morning, I think I need to speak to Lavender. And then – maybe next time there's a party happening, I might ask you to go with me?"

"And it might be a date?"

"Yes. And then – then we might be dating?"

"We might," she confirms, with a tentative smile.

"Good." The grin threatens to split his face, despite the number of things he still needs to unscrew. "Great. Do you – do you want to play a game of chess, for a bit, or something?"

"No thanks," she says regretfully, closing her book once and for all, "I ought to get some sleep."

"OK. Sure. Of course. I'll see you tomorrow?"

"I'll be here," she confirms, "In my new favourite chair, in my new favourite jumper."

"You know something?" His ears are glowing, as are his cheeks, and he looks like he's about to face down a dragon, perhaps.

"What?"

"You look much better in maroon than I do."

**a/n Thanks for reading!**


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